Saturday, 21 January 2012

The good news for now is that on January 18, 2012, US President Barack Obama rejected the application from TransCanada Pipelines to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas. But now is not the time to celebrate. There is still another battle being fought right here at home in Canada, the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline planned to stretch across Alberta and British Columbia to the Pacific coast.

What Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver had to say reeks with the stench of dirty oil for big profits for Big Oil companies.

"Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth."

"These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest."

Joe Oliver states that "radical" environmental groups are delaying the review process.

In the minds of Joe Oliver, Stephen Harper and his government, the Northern Gate Pipeline is a "done deal". The review process is a hindrance to corporate progress. Why have a review process for the public to tell the government it is dead wrong? The review process is there as an opportunity for both sides to voice their arguments. It is the Harper government that wants to curtail the due process in order to accelerate its own agenda.

"In many cases, these projects would create thousands upon thousands of jobs for Canadians, yet they can take years to get started due to the slow, complex and cumbersome federal Government approval process."

What jobs? All of these so called jobs are temporary, transient jobs. Once the pipeline is built, these jobs will be gone. The jobs and legacy that will be left behind will be the ones to clean up the ongoing pollution, contaminated water system, environmental damage and escalating damage to human health and well-being.

"For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets in order to create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country. We must expand our trade with the fast growing Asian economies."

Nonsense. You cannot fool the public all the time. The Northern Gateway Pipeline and the entire Alberta Tar-sands project is all about big profits for Big Oil Companies. We give away non-renewable resources to Asian countries for what?. We supply Chinese manufacturing industry with cheap energy in exchange for cheap plastic goods that end up in landfill after less than a year of usage. We are not creating jobs in Canada. No, we are exporting jobs to China.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet. The Northern Gateway Pipeline is the Harper government's backup fuse.

We have already released a significant amount of carbon into the atmosphere from the Saudi Arabian oil deposits. If we release the carbon from the Alberta Tar-sands you might as well kiss your kids goodbye. The best place for fossil fuel is to leave it in the ground.

Dr. Jim Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA has said, "Einstein said that to think and not act is a crime."

Now is the time for all of us to act and stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline.